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﻿Title: Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America
Author: Walker, David, 1785-1830, Garnet, Henry Highland
Language: English
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WALKER'S APPEAL,
WITH A BRIEF SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.
BY
HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET.
AND ALSO
GARNET'S ADDRESS
TO THE SLAVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
NEW-YORK:
Printed by J.H. Tobitt, 9 Spruce st
1848.
PREFACE.
Such is the very high esteem which is entertained for the memory of
DAVID WALKER, and so general is the desire to preserve his
"Appeal," that the subscriber has undertaken, and performed the task
of re-publication, with a brief notice of his life, having procured
permission from his widow, Mrs. Dewson.
The work is valuable, because it was among the first, and was actually
the boldest and most direct appeal in behalf of freedom, which was
made in the early part of the Anti-Slavery Reformation. When the
history of the emancipation of the bondmen of America shall be
written, whatever name shall be placed first on the list of heroes,
that of the author of the Appeal will not be second.
_Troy, N.Y., April 12, 1848._
A BRIEF SKETCH
OF THE
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF DAVID WALKER.
It is generally the desire of the reader of any intellectual
production, to know something of the character and the life of the
author. The character of _David Walker_ is indicated in his writings.
In regard to his life, but a few materials can be gathered; but what
is known of him, furnishes proof to the opinion which the friends of
man have formed of him--that he possessed a noble and a courageous
spirit, and that he was ardently attached to the cause of liberty.
Mr. Walker was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, Sept. 28, 1785. His
mother was a free woman, and his father was a slave. His innate hatred
to slavery was very early developed. When yet a boy, he declared that
the slaveholding South was not the place for him. His soul became so
indignant at the wrongs which his father and his kindred bore, that he
determined to find some portion of his country where he would see less
to harrow up his soul. Said he, "If I remain in this bloody land, I
will not live long. As true as God reigns, I will be avenged for the
sorrow which my people have suffered. This is not the place for
me--no, no. I must leave this part of the country. It will be a great
trial for me to live on the same soil where so many men are in
slavery; certainly I cannot remain where I must hear their chains
continually, and where I must encounter the insults of their
hypocritical enslaver. Go, I must."
The youthful Walker embraced his mother, and received a mother's
blessings, and turned his back upon North Carolina. His father died a
few months before his birth; and it is a remarkable coincidence, that
the son of the subject of this Memoir, was a posthumous child.
After leaving home, David Walker travelled rapidly towards the North,
shaking off the dust of his feet, and breathing curses upon the system
of human slavery, America's darling institution. As might be expected,
he met with trials during his journey; and at last he reached Boston,
Mass., where he took up his permanent residence. There he applied
himself to study, and soon learned to read and write, in order that he
might contribute something to the cause of humanity. Mr. Walker, like
most of reformers, was a poor man--he lived poor, and died poor.
In 1827 be entered into the clothing business in Brattle street, in
which he prospered; and had it not been for his great liberality and
hospitality, he would have become wealthy. In 1828, he married Miss
Eliza ----. He was emphatically a self-made man, and he spent all his
leisure moments in the cultivation of his mind. Before the
Anti-Slavery Reformation had assumed a form, he was ardently engaged
in the work. His hands were always open to contribute to the wants of
the fugitive. His house was the shelter and the home of the poor and
needy. Mr. Walker is known principally by his "APPEAL," but it was in
his private walks, and by his unceasing labors in the cause of
freedom, that he has made his memory sacred.
With an overflowing heart, he published his "Appeal" in 1829. This
little book produced more commotion among slaveholders than any volume
of its size that was ever issued from an American press. They saw that
it was a bold attack upon their idolatry, and that too by a black man
who once lived among them. It was merely a smooth stone which this
David took up, yet it terrified a host of Goliaths. When the fame of
this book reached the South, the poor, cowardly, pusillanimous
tyrants, grew pale behind their cotton bags, and armed themselves to
the teeth. They set watches to look after their happy and contented
slaves. The Governor of GEORGIA wrote to the Hon. Harrison Grey Otis,
the Mayor of Boston, requesting him to suppress the Appeal. His Honor
replied to the Southern Censor, that he had no power nor disposition
to hinder Mr. Walker from pursuing a lawful course in the utterance of
his thoughts. A company of Georgia men then bound themselves by an
oath, that they would eat as little as possible until they had killed
the youthful author. They also offered a reward of a thousand dollars
for his head, and ten times as much for the live Walker. His consort,
with the solicitude of an affectionate wife, together with some
friends, advised him to go to Canada, lest he should be abducted.
Walker said that he had nothing to fear from such a pack of coward
blood-hounds; but if he did go, he would hurl back such thunder across
the great lakes, that would cause them to tremble in their strong
holds. Said he, "I will stand my ground. _Somebody must die in this
cause._ I may be doomed to the stake and the fire, or to the scaffold
tree, but it is not in me to falter if I can promote the work of
emancipation." He did not leave the country, but was soon laid in the
grave. It was the opinion of many that he was hurried out of life by
the means of poison, but whether this was the case or not, the writer
is not prepared to affirm.
He had many enemies, and not a few were his brethren whose cause he
espoused. They said that he went too far, and was making trouble. So
the Jews spoke of Moses. They valued the flesh-pots of Egypt more than
the milk and honey of Canaan. He died 1830 in Bridge street, at the
hopeful and enthusiastic age of 34 years. His ruling passion blazed up
in the hour of death, and threw an indescribable grandeur over the
last dark scene. The heroic young man passed away without a struggle,
and a few weeping friends
"Saw in death his eyelids close,
Calmly, as to a night's repose,
Like flowers at set of sun."
The personal appearance of Mr. Walker was prepossessing, being six
feet in height, slender and well proportioned. His hair was loose, and
his complexion was dark. His son, the only child he left, is now 18
years of age, and is said to resemble his father; he now resides at
Charlestown, Mass., with his mother, Mrs. Dewson. Mr. Walker was a
faithful member of the Methodist Church at Boston, whose pastor is the
venerable father Snowden.
The reader thus has a brief notice of the life and character of David
Walker.
WALKER'S
APPEAL,
IN FOUR ARTICLES,
TOGETHER WITH
A PREAMBLE,
TO THE
COLORED CITIZENS OF THE WORLD,
BUT IN PARTICULAR, AND VERY EXPRESSLY TO THOSE OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
_Written in Boston, in the State of Massachusetts, Sept. 28, 1829._
SECOND EDITION, WITH CORRECTIONS, &c.
BY DAVID WALKER.
1830.
APPEAL. &c.
PREAMBLE.
_My dearly beloved Brethren and Fellow Citizens:_
Having travelled over a considerable portion of these United States,
and having, in the course of my travels taken the most accurate
observations of things as they exist--the result of my observations
has warranted the full and unshakened conviction, that we, (colored
people of these United States) are the most degraded, wretched, and
abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began, and I pray
God, that none like us ever may live again until time shall be no
more. They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta,
and of the Roman Slaves, which last, were made up from almost every
nation under heaven, whose sufferings under those ancient and heathen
nations were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and
christian nation, no more than a cypher--or in other words, those
heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more among them than the
name and form of slavery, while wretchedness and endless miseries were
reserved, apparently in a phial, to be poured out upon our fathers,
ourselves and our children by _christian_ Americans!
These positions, I shall endeavour, by the help of the Lord, to
demonstrate in the course of this _appeal_, to the satisfaction of the
most incredulous mind--and may God Almighty who is the father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, open your hearts to understand and believe the
truth.
The _causes_, my brethren, which produce our wretchedness and
miseries, are so very numerous and aggravating, that I believe the pen
only of a Josephus or a Plutarch, can well enumerate and explain them.
Upon subjects, then, of such incomprehensible magnitude, so
impenetrable, and so notorious, I shall be obliged to omit a large
class of, and content myself with giving you an exposition of a few of
those, which do indeed rage to such an alarming pitch, that they
cannot but be a perpetual source of terror and dismay to every
reflecting mind.
I am fully aware, in making this appeal to my much afflicted and
suffering brethren, that I shall not only be assailed by those whose
greatest earthly desires are, to keep us in abject ignorance and
wretchedness, and who are of the firm conviction that heaven has
designed us and our children to be slaves and _beasts of burden_ to
them and their children.--I say, I do not only expect to be held up to
the public as an ignorant, impudent and restless disturber of the
public peace, by such avaricious creatures, as well as a mover of
insubordination--and perhaps put in prison or to death, for giving a
superficial exposition of our miseries, and exposing tyrants. But I am
persuaded, that many of my brethren, particularly those who are
ignorantly in league with slave-holders or tyrants, who acquire their
daily bread by the blood and sweat of their more ignorant
brethren--and not a few of those too, who are too ignorant to see an
inch beyond their noses, will rise up and call me cursed--Yea, the
jealous ones among us will perhaps use more abject subtlety by
affirming that this work is not worth perusing; that we are well
situated and there is no use in trying to better our condition, for we
cannot. I will ask one question here.--Can our condition be any
worse?--Can it be more mean and abject? If there are any changes, will
they not be for the better, though they may appear for the worse at
first? Can they get us any lower? Where can they get us? They are
afraid to treat us worse, for they know well, the day they do it they
are gone. But against all accusations which may or can be preferred
against me, I appeal to heaven for my motive in writing--who knows
that my object is, if possible, to awaken in the breasts of my
afflicted, degraded and slumbering brethren, a spirit of enquiry and
investigation respecting our miseries and wretchedness in this
_Republican Land of Liberty!!!!!_
The sources from which our miseries are derived and on which I shall
comment, I shall not combine in one, but shall put them under distinct
heads and expose them in their turn; in doing which, keeping truth on
my side, and not departing from the strictest rules of morality, I
shall endeavor to penetrate, search out, and lay them open for your
inspection. If you cannot or will not profit by them, I shall have
done _my_ duty to you, my country and my God.
And as the inhuman system of _slavery_, is the _source_ from which
most of our miseries proceed, I shall begin with that _curse to
nations_; which has spread terror and devastation through so many
nations of antiquity, and which is raging to such a pitch at the
present day in Spain and in Portugal. It had one tug in England, in
France, and in the United States of America; yet the inhabitants
thereof, do not learn wisdom, and erase it entirely from their
dwellings and from all with whom they have to do. The fact is, the
labor of slaves comes so cheap to the avaricious usurpers, and is (as
they think) of such great utility to the country where it exists, that
those who are actuated by sordid avarice only, overlook the evils,
which will as sure as the Lord lives, follow after the good. In fact,
they are so happy to keep in ignorance and degradation, and to receive
the homage and the labor of the slaves, they forget that God rules in
the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, having
his ears continually open to the cries, tears and groans of his
oppressed people; and being a just and holy Being will at one day
appear fully in behalf of the oppressed, and arrest the progress of
the avaricious oppressors; for although the destruction of the
oppressors God may not effect by the oppressed, yet the Lord our God
will bring other destructions upon them--for not unfrequently will he
cause them to rise up one against another, to be split and divided,
and to oppress each other, and sometimes to open hostilities with
sword in hand. Some may ask, what is the matter with this enlightened
and happy people?--Some say it is the cause of political usurpers,
tyrants, oppressors, &c. But has not the Lord an oppressed and
suffering people among them? Does the Lord condescend to hear their
cries and see their tears in consequence of oppression? Will he let
the oppressors rest comfortably and happy always? Will he not cause
the very children of the oppressors to rise up against them, and
oftimes put them to death? "God works in many ways his wonders to
perform."
I will not here speak of the destructions which the Lord brought upon
Egypt, in consequence of the oppression and consequent groans of the
oppressed--of the hundreds and thousands of Egyptians whom God hurled
into the Red Sea for afflicting his people in their land--of the
Lord's suffering people in Sparta or Lacedemon, the land of the truly
famous Lycurgus--nor have I time to comment upon the cause which
produced the fierceness with which Sylla usurped the title, and
absolutely acted as dictator of the Roman people--the conspiracy of
Cataline--the conspiracy against, and murder of Cæsar in the Senate
house--the spirit with which Marc Antony made himself master of the
commonwealth--his associating Octavius and Lipidus with himself in
power,--their dividing the provinces of Rome among themselves--their
attack and defeat on the plains of Phillipi the last defenders of
their liberty, (Brutus and Cassius)--the tyranny of Tiberius, and from
him to the final overthrow of Constantinople by the Turkish Sultan,
Mahomed II., A.D. 1453. I say, I shall not take up time to speak of
the _causes_ which produced so much wretchedness and massacre among
those heathen nations, for I am aware that you know too well, that God
is just, as well as merciful!--I shall call your attention a few
moments to that _christian_ nation, the Spaniards, while I shall leave
almost unnoticed that avaricious and cruel people, the Portuguese,
among whom all true hearted christians and lovers of Jesus Christ,
must evidently see the judgments of God displayed. To show the
judgments of God upon the Spaniards I shall occupy but little time,
leaving a plenty of room for the candid and unprejudiced to reflect.
All persons who are acquainted with history, and particularly the
Bible, who are not blinded by the God of this world, and are not
actuated solely by avarice--who are able to lay aside prejudice long
enough to view candidly and impartially, things as they were, are, and
probably will be, who are willing to admit that God made man to serve
him _alone_, and that man should have no other Lord or Lords but
himself--that God Almighty is the _sole proprietor_ or _master_ of the
WHOLE human family, and will not on any consideration admit of a
colleague, being unwilling to divide his glory with another.--And who
can dispense with prejudice long enough to admit that we are men,
notwithstanding our _improminent noses_ and _woolly heads_, and
believe that we feel for our fathers, mothers, wives and children as
well as they do for theirs.--I say, all who are permitted to see and
believe these things, can easily recognize the judgments of God among
the Spaniards. Though others may lay the cause of the fierceness with
which they cut each other's throats, to some other circumstances, yet
they who believe that God is a God of justice, will believe that
SLAVERY _is the principal cause_.
While the Spaniards are running about upon the field of battle cutting
each other's throats, has not the Lord an afflicted and suffering
people in the midst of them whose cries and groans in consequence of
oppression are continually pouring into the ears of the God of
justice? Would they not cease to cut each others throats if they
could? But how can they? The very support which they draw from
government to aid them in perpetrating such enormities, does it not
arise in a great degree from the wretched victims of oppression among
them? And yet they are calling for _Peace!--Peace!!_ Will any peace be
given unto them? Their destruction may indeed be procrastinated
awhile, but can it continue long while they are oppressing the Lord's
people? Has He not the hearts of all men in His hand? Will he suffer
one part of his creatures to go on oppressing another like brutes
always, with impunity? And yet those avaricious wretches are calling
for _Peace!!!!_ I declare it does appear to me, as though some nations
think God is asleep, or that he made the Africans for nothing else but
to dig their mines and work their farms, or they cannot believe
history, sacred or profane. I ask every man who has a heart and is
blessed with the privilege of believing--Is not God a God of justice
to all his creatures? Do you say he is? Then if he gives peace and
tranquility to tyrants, and permits them to keep our fathers, our
mothers, ourselves and our children in eternal ignorance and
wretchedness to support them and their families, would he be to us a
God of _justice_? I ask O ye _christians!!!_ who hold us and our
children, in the most abject ignorance and degradation, that ever a
people were afflicted with since the world began--I say, if God gives
you peace and tranquility, and suffers you thus to go on afflicting
us and our children, who have never given you the least
provocation,--Would he be to us _a God of justice_? If you will allow
that we are MEN, who feel for each other, does not the blood of our
fathers and of us their children, cry aloud to the Lord of Sabaoth
against you, for the cruelties and murders with which you have, and do
continue to afflict us. But it is time for me to close my remarks on
the suburbs, just to enter more fully into the interior of this system
of cruelty and oppression.
ARTICLE I.
OUR WRETCHEDNESS IN CONSEQUENCE OF SLAVERY.
My beloved brethren: The Indians of North and of South America--the
Greeks--the Irish subjected under the king of Great Britain--the Jews
that ancient people of the Lord--the inhabitants of the islands of the
sea--in fine, all the inhabitants of the earth, (except however, the
sons of Africa) are called _men_, and of course are, and ought to be
free. But we, (coloured people) and our children are _brutes!!_ and of
course are and ought to be SLAVES to the American people and their
children forever! to dig their mines and work their farms; and thus go
on enriching them, from one generation to another with our blood and
our tears!!
I promised in a preceding page to demonstrate to the satisfaction of
the most incredulous, that we, (colored people of these United States
of America) are the _most wretched, degraded_ and abject set of beings
that ever _lived_ since the world began, and that the white Americans
having reduced us to the wretched state of _slavery_, treat us in that
condition _more cruel_ (they being an enlightened and Christian
people) than any heathen nation did any people whom it had reduced to
our condition. These affirmations are so well confirmed in the minds
of all unprejudiced men who have taken the trouble to read histories,
that they need no elucidation from me. But to put them beyond all
doubt, I refer you in the first place to the children of Jacob, or of
Israel in Egypt, under Pharaoh and his people. Some of my brethren do
not know who Pharaoh and the Egyptians were--I know it to be a fact
that some of them take the Egyptians to have been a gang of _devils_,
not knowing any better, and that they (Egyptians) having got
possession of the Lord's people, treated them _nearly_ as cruel as
_christians Americans_ do us, at the present day. For the information
of such, I would only mention that the Egyptians, were Africans or
colored people, such as we are--some of them yellow and others dark--a
mixture of Ethiopians and the natives of Egypt--about the same as you
see the colored people of the United States at the present day,--I
say, I call your attention then, to the children of Jacob, while I
point out particularly to you his son Joseph among the rest, in Egypt.
"And Pharaoh, said unto Joseph, thou shalt be over my house,
and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled;
only in the throne will I be greater than thou."[1]
"And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, see, I have set thee over all
the land of Egypt."[2]
"And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without
thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land
of Egypt."[3]
Now I appeal to heaven and to earth, and particularly to the American
people themselves who cease not to declare that our condition is not
_hard_, and that we are comparatively satisfied to rest in
wretchedness and misery, under them and their children. Not, indeed,
to show me a colored President, a Governor, a Legislator, a Senator, a
Mayor, or an Attorney at the Bar.--But to show me a man of color, who
holds the low office of a Constable, or one who sits in a Juror Box,
even on a case of one of his wretched brethren, throughout this great
Republic!!--But let us pass Joseph the son of Israel a little further
in review, as he existed with that heathen nation.
"And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnathpaaneah; and he
gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest
of On. And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt."[4]
Compare the above, with the American institutions. Do they not
institute laws to prohibit us from marrying among the whites? I would
wish, candidly, however, before the Lord, to be understood, that I
would not give _a pinch of snuff_ to be married to any white person I
ever saw in all the days of my life. And I do say it, that the black
man, or man of color, who will leave his own color (provided he can
get one who is good for any thing) and marry a white woman, to be a
double slave to her just because she is _white_, ought to be treated
by her as he surely will be, viz; as a NIGER!!! It is not indeed what
I care about intermarriages with the whites, which induced me to pass
this subject in review; for the Lord knows, that there is a day coming
when they will be glad enough to get into the company of the blacks,
notwithstanding, we are, in this generation, levelled by them almost
on a level with the brute creation; and some of us they treat even
worse than they do the brutes that perish. I only made this extract to
show how much lower we are held, and how much more cruel we are
treated by the Americans, than were the children of Jacob, by the
Egyptians. We will notice the sufferings of Israel some further, under
_heathen Pharaoh_, compared with ours under the _enlightened
christians of America_.
"And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, thy father and thy
brethren are come unto thee:"
"The land of Egypt is before thee: in the best of the land
make thy father and brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen
let them dwell; and if thou knowest any men of activity
among them, then make them rulers over my cattle."[5]
I ask those people who treat us so _well_, Oh! I ask them, where is
the most barren spot of land which they have given unto us? Israel had
the most fertile land in all Egypt. Need I mention the very notorious
fact, that I have known a poor man of color, who labored night and
day, to acquire a little money, and having acquired it, he vested it
in a small piece of land, and got him a house erected thereon, and
having paid for the whole, he moved his family into it, where he was
suffered to remain but nine months, when he was cheated out of his
property by a white man, and driven out of door!--And is not this the
case generally? Can a man of color buy a piece of land and keep it
peaceably? Will not some white man try to get it from him even if it
is in a _mud hole_? I need not comment any farther on a subject, which
all, both black and white, will readily admit. But I must, really,
observe that in this very city, when a man of color dies, if he owned
any real estate it must generally fall into the hands of some white
person. The wife and children of the deceased may weep and lament if
they please, but the estate will be kept snug enough by its white
possessors.
But to prove farther that the condition of the Israelites was better
under the Egyptians than ours is under the whites. I call upon the
professing christians, I call upon the philanthropist, I call upon the
very tyrant himself, to show me a page of history, either sacred or
profane, on which a verse can be found, which maintains, that the
Egyptians heaped the _insupportable insult_ upon the children of
Israel by telling them that they were not of the _human family_. Can
the whites deny this charge? Have they not, after having reduced us to
the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet, held us up as
descending originally from the tribes of _Monkeys_ or _Orang-Outangs_?
O! my God! I appeal to every man of feeling--is not this
insupportable? Is it not heaping the most gross insult upon our
miseries, because they have got us under their feet and we cannot help
ourselves? Oh! pity us we pray thee, Lord Jesus, Master.--Has Mr.
Jefferson declared to the world, that we are inferior to the whites,
both in the endowments of our bodies and of minds? It is indeed
surprising, that a man of such great learning, combined with such
excellent natural parts, should speak so of a set of men in chains. I
do not know what to compare it to, unless, like putting one wild deer
in an iron cage, where it will be secured, and hold another by the
side of the same, then let it go, and expect the one in the cage to
run as fast as the one at liberty. So far, my brethren, were the
Egyptians from heaping these insults upon their slaves, that Pharaoh's
daughter took Moses, a son of Israel, for her own, as will appear by
the following.
"And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, [Moses' mother] take
this child away, and nurse it for me and I will pay thee thy
wages. And the woman took the child [Moses] and nursed it.
"And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's
daughter and he became her son. And she called his name
Moses: and she said because I drew him out of the water."[6]
In all probability, Moses would have become Prince Regent to the
throne, and no doubt, in process of time but he would have been seated
on the throne of Egypt. But he had rather suffer shame, with the
people of God, than to enjoy pleasures with that wicked people for a
season. O! that the colored people were long since of Moses' excellent
disposition, instead of courting favor with, and telling news and lies
to our _natural enemies_, against each other--aiding them to keep
their hellish chains of slavery upon us. Would we not long before this
time, have been respectable men, instead of such wretched victims of
oppression as we are? Would they be able to drag our mothers, our
fathers, our wives, our children and ourselves, around the world in
chains and hand-cuffs as they do, to dig up gold and silver for them
and theirs? This question, my brethren, I leave for you to digest; and
may God Almighty force it home to your hearts. Remember that unless
you are united, keeping your tongues within your teeth, you will be
afraid to trust your secrets to each other, and thus perpetuate our
miseries under the _christians!!!!!_ [Hand->] ADDITION,--Remember,
also to lay humble at the feet of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ,
with prayers and fastings. Let our enemies go on with their
butcheries, and at once fill up their cup. Never make an attempt to
gain our freedom or _natural right_, from under our cruel oppressors
and murderers, until you see your way clear; when that hour arrives
and you move, be not afraid or dismayed; for be you assured that Jesus
Christ the king of heaven and of earth who is the God of justice and
of armies, will surely go before you. And those enemies who have for
hundreds of years stolen our _rights_, and kept us ignorant of Him and
His divine worship, he will remove. Millions of whom, are this day, so
ignorant and avaricious, that they cannot conceive how God can have an
attribute of justice, and show mercy to us because it pleased Him to
make us black--which color, Mr. Jefferson calls unfortunate!!!!!! As
though we are not as thankful to our God for having made us as it
pleased himself, as they (the whites) are for having made them white.
They think because they hold us in their infernal chains of slavery
that we wish to be white, or of their color--but they are dreadfully
deceived--we wish to be just as it pleased our Creator to have made
us, and no avaricious and unmerciful wretches, have any business to
make slaves of or hold us in slavery. How would they like for us to
make slaves of, or hold them in cruel slavery, and murder them as they
do us? But is Mr. Jefferson's assertion true? viz. "that it is
unfortunate for us that our Creator has been pleased to make us
black." We will not take his say so, for the fact. The world will have
an opportunity to see whether it is unfortunate for us, that our
Creator _has made us_ darker than the _whites_.
Fear not the number and education of our _enemies_, against whom we
shall have to contend for our lawful right; guaranteed to us by our
Maker; for why should we be afraid, when God is, and will continue
(if we continue humble) to be on our side?
The man who would not fight under our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in
the glorious and heavenly cause of freedom and of God--to be delivered
from the most wretched, abject and servile slavery, that ever a people
was afflicted with since the foundation of the world, to the present
day--ought to be kept with all of his children or family, in slavery,
or in chains, to be butchered by his _cruel enemies_. [] "Will not a lover of natural history then, one who
views the gradations in all the races of _animals_ with the
eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the
department of MAN as _distinct_ as nature has formed them?"
I hope you will try to find out the meaning of this verse--its widest
sense and all its bearings: whether you do or not, remember the whites
do. This very verse, brethren, having emanated from Mr. Jefferson, a
much greater philosopher the world never afforded, has in truth
injured us more, and has been as great a barrier to our emancipation
as any thing that has ever been advanced against us. I hope you will
not let it pass unnoticed. He goes on further, and says:
"This _unfortunate_ difference of colour, and _perhaps_ of
_faculty_, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of
these people. Many of their advocates, while they wish to
vindicate the liberty of human nature are anxious also to
preserve its _dignity_ and _beauty_. Some of these,
embarrassed by the question, 'What further is to be done
with them? join themselves in opposition with those who are
actuated by sordid avarice only."
Now I ask you candidly, my suffering brethren in time, who are
candidates for the eternal worlds, how could Mr. Jefferson but have
given the world these remarks respecting us, when we are so submissive
to them, and so much servile deceit prevails among ourselves--when we
so _meanly_ submit to their murderous lashes, to which neither the
Indians or any other people under heaven would submit? No, they could
die to a man, before they would suffer such things from men who are no
better than themselves, and _perhaps not so good_. Yes, how can our
friends but be embarrassed, as Mr. Jefferson says, by the question,
"What further is to be done with these people?" for while they are
working for our emancipation, we are, by our treachery, wickedness and
deceit, working against ourselves and our children--helping ours, and
the enemies of God, to keep us and our dear little children, in their
infernal chains of slavery!! Indeed, our friends cannot but relapse
and join themselves with those who are actuated by _sordid avarice_
only!!!!' For my part, I am glad Mr. Jefferson has advanced his
position for your sake; for you will either have to contradict or
confirm him by your own actions and not by what our friends have said
or done for us; for those things are other men's labors and do not
satisfy the Americans who are waiting for us to prove to them
ourselves that we are MEN before they will be willing to admit the
fact; for I pledge you my sacred word of honor that Mr. Jefferson's
remarks respecting us have sunk deep into the hearts of millions of
the whites and never will be removed this side of eternity. For how
can they, when we are confirming him every day by our _groveling
submissions_ and _treachery_?
I aver that when I look upon these United States and see the ignorant
deceptions and consequent wretchedness of my brethren, I am brought
oft-times solemnly to a stand, and in the midst of my reflections I
exclaim to my God, 'Lord didst thou make us to be slaves to our
brethren, the whites?' But when I reflect that God is just, and that
millions of my wretched brethren would meet death with glory--yea,
more, would plunge into the very mouths of cannons and be torn into
particles as minute as the atoms which compose the elements of the
earth, in preference to a mean submission to the lash of tyrants, I am
with streaming eyes, compelled to shrink back into nothingness before
my Maker, and exclaim again, thy will be done, O Lord God Almighty.
Men of colour, who are also of sense, for you particularly is my
appeal designed. Our more ignorant brethren are not able to penetrate
its value. I call upon you therefore to cast your eyes upon the
wretchedness of your brethren and to do your utmost to enlighten
them--_go to work and enlighten your brethren!_--let the Lord see you
doing what you can to rescue them and yourselves from degradation. Do
any of you say that you and your family are free and happy and what
have you to do with wretched slaves and other people? So can I say,
for I enjoy as much freedom as any of you, if I am not quite as well
off as the best of you. Look into our freedom and happiness and see of
what kind they are composed!! They are of the very lowest kind--they
are the very _dregs!_--they are the most servile and abject kind, that
ever a people was in possession of! If any of you wish to know how
FREE you are, let one of you start and go thro' the southern and
western States of this country, and unless you travel as a slave to a
white man (a servant is a _slave_ to the man whom he serves,) or have
your free papers (which if you are not careful they will get from you)
if they do not take you up and put you in jail, and if you cannot
give evidence of your freedom, sell you into eternal slavery, I am not
a living man; or any man of color, immaterial who he is or where he
came from, if he is not the 4th from the "_Negro race_," (as we are
called,) the white christians of America will serve him the same, they
will sink him into wretchedness & degradation forever while he lives.
And yet some of you have the hardihood to say that you are free &
happy! May God have mercy on your freedom and happiness! I met a
colored man in the street a short time since, with a string of boots
on his shoulder; we fell into conversation, and in course of which I
said to him, what a miserable set of people we are! He asked
why?--Said I, we are so subjected under the whites, that we cannot
obtain the comforts of life, but by cleaning their boots and shoes,
old clothes, waiting on them, shaving them, etc. Said he, (with the
boots on his shoulders,) "I am completely happy!!! I never want to
live any better or happier than when I can get a plenty of boots and
shoes to clean!!!" Oh! how can those who are actuated by avarice only,
but think that our creator made us to be an inheritance to them
forever, when they see that our greatest glory is centered in such
mean and low objects? Understand me, brethren, I do not mean to speak
against the occupations by which we acquire enough and sometimes
scarcely that, to render ourselves and families comfortable through
life. I am subjected to the same inconvenience, as you all. My
objections are, to our _glorying_ and being _happy_ in such low
employments; for if we are men, we ought to be thankful to the Lord
for the past, and for the future. Be looking forward with thankful
hearts to higher attainments than _wielding the razor_ and _cleaning
boots and shoes_. The man whose aspirations are not _above_, and even
_below_ these, is indeed, ignorant and wretched enough. I advance it
therefore to you, not as a _problematical_, but as an unshaken and
forever immoveable _fact_, that your full glory and happiness, as well
as all other colored people under heaven, shall never be fully
consummated, but with the _entire emancipation of your enslaved
brethren all over the world_. You may therefore, go to work and do
what you can to rescue, or join in with tyrants to oppress them and
yourselves, until the Lord shall come upon you all like a thief in the
night. For I believe it is the will of the Lord that our greatest
happiness shall consist in working for the salvation of our whole
body. When this is accomplished a burst of glory will shine upon you,
which will indeed astonish you and the world. Do any of you say this
will never be done? I assure you that God will accomplish it--if
nothing else will answer, he will hurl tyrants and devils into _atoms_
and make way for his people. But O my brethren! I say unto you again,
you must go to work and _prepare the way_ of the Lord.
There is a great work for you to do, as trifling as some of you may
think of it. You have to prove to the Americans and the world, that we
are MEN, and not _brutes_ as we have been represented, and by millions
treated. Remember, to let the aim of your labours among your brethren,
and particularly the youths, be the dissemination of education and
religion. It is lamentable, that many of our children go to school,
from four until they are eight or ten, and sometimes fifteen years of
age, and leave school knowing but a little more about the grammar of
their language than a horse does about handling a musket--and not a
few of them are really so ignorant, that they are unable to answer a
person correctly, general questions in geography, and to hear them
read would only be to disgust a man who has a taste for reading;
which, to do well, as trifling as it may appear to some, (to the
ignorant in particular) is a great part of learning. Some few of them,
may make out to scribble tolerably well, over a half sheet of paper,
which I believe has hitherto been a powerful obstacle in our way, to
keep us from acquiring knowledge. An ignorant father, who knows no
more than what nature has taught him, together with what little he
acquires by the senses of hearing and seeing, finding his son able to
write a neat hand, sets it down for granted that he has as good
learning as any body; the young, ignorant gump, hearing his father or
mother, who perhaps may be ten times more ignorant, in point of
literature, than himself, extolling his learning, struts about in the
full assurance, that his attainments in literature are sufficient to
take him through the world, when, in fact, he has scarcely any
learning at all!!!!
I promiscuously fell in a conversation once, with an elderly colored
man on the topics of education, and of the great prevalency of
ignorance among us: Said he, "I know that our people are very ignorant
but my son has a good education: he can write as well as any white
man, and I assure you that no one can fool him," etc. Said I, what
else can your son do, besides writing a good hand? Can he post a set
of books in a mercantile manner? Can he write a neat piece of
composition in prose or in verse? To these interrogations he answered
in the negative. Said I, Did your son learn, while he was at school,
the width and depth of English Grammar? to which he also replied in
the negative, telling me his son did not learn those things. Your son,
said I, then, has hardly any learning at all--he is almost as
ignorant, and more so, than many of those who never went to school one
day in their lives. My friend got a little put out, and so walking off
said that his son could write as well as any white man.--Most of the
coloured people, when they speak of the education of one among us who
can write a neat hand, and who perhaps knows nothing but to scribble
and puff pretty fair on a small scrap of paper, immaterial whether his
words are grammatical, or spelt correctly, or not; if it only looks
beautiful, they say he has as good an education as any white man--he
can write as well as any white man, etc. The poor, ignorant creature,
hearing this, he is ashamed, forever after, to let any person see him
humbling himself to another for knowledge but going about trying to
deceive those who are more ignorant than himself, he at last falls an
ignorant victim to death in wretchedness. I pray that the Lord may
undeceive my ignorant brethren, and permit them to throw away
pretensions, and seek after the substance of learning. I would crawl
on my hands and knees through mud and mire, to the feet of a learned
man, where I would sit and humbly supplicate him to instil into me,
that which neither devils nor tyrants could remove, only with my
life--for the Africans to acquire learning in this country, makes
tyrants quake and tremble on their sandy foundation. Why what is the
matter? Why, they know that their infernal deeds of cruelty will be
made known to the world. Do you suppose one man of good sense and
learning would submit himself, his father, mother, wife and children,
to be slaves to a wretched man like himself, who, instead of
compensating him for his labours, chains, handcuffs and beats him and
family almost to death, leaving life enough in them, however, to work
for, and call him master? No! no! he would cut his devilish throat
from ear to ear, and well do slaveholders know it. The bare name of
educating the coloured people, scares our cruel oppressors almost to
death. But if they do not have enough to be frightened for yet, it
will be, because they can always keep us ignorant, and because God
approbates their cruelties, with which they have been for centuries
murdering us. The whites shall have enough of the blacks, yet, as true
as God sits on his throne in heaven.
Some of our brethren are so very full of learning that you cannot
mention any thing to them which they do not know better than
yourself!!--nothing is strange to them!!--they knew every thing years
ago!--if any thing should be mentioned in company where they are,
immaterial how important it is respecting us or the world, if they had
not divulged it; they make light of it, and affect to have known it
long before it was mentioned, and try to make all in the room, or
wherever you may be, believe that your conversation is nothing--not
worth hearing!! All this is the result of ignorance and ill-breeding;
for a man of good breeding, sense, and penetration, if he had heard a
subject told twenty times over and should happen to be in company
where one should commence telling it again, he would wait with
patience on its narrator, and see if he would tell it as it was told
in his presence before--paying the most strict attention to what is
said, to see if any more light will be thrown on the subject; for all
men are not gifted alike in telling, or even hearing the most simple
narration. These ignorant, vicious, and wretched men, contribute
almost as much injury to our body as tyrants themselves, by doing so
much for the promotion of ignorance amongst us; for they, making such
pretensions to knowledge, such of our youth as are seeking after
knowledge, and can get access to them, take them as criterions to go
by, who will lead them into a channel, where, unless the Lord blesses
them with the privilege of seeing their error, they will be
irretrievably lost forever, while in time!!
I must close this article by narrating the very heart-rending fact,
that I have examined school-boys and young men of colour in different
parts of the country, in the most simple parts of Murray's English
Grammar, and not more than one in thirty was able to give a correct
answer to my interrogations. If any one contradicts me, let him step
out of his door into the streets of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or
Baltimore, (no use to mention any other, for the Christians are too
charitable further south or west!)--I say, let him who disputes me,
step out of his door into the streets of either of those four cities,
and promiscuously collect one hundred school boys or young men of
colour, _who have been to school_, and who are considered by the
coloured people to have received an excellent education, because,
perhaps, some of them can write a good hand, but who notwithstanding
their neat writing, may be almost as ignorant, in comparison, as
horses. And, I say it, he will hardly find (in this enlightened day,
and in the midst of this _charitable_ people) five in one hundred, who
are able to correct the false grammar of their language. The cause of
this almost universal ignorance amongst us, I appeal to our
school-masters to declare. Here is a fact, which I this very minute
take from the mouth of a young coloured man, who has been to school in
this state (Massachusetts) nearly nine years, and who knows grammar
this day, _nearly_ as well as he did the day he first entered the
school-house, under a white master. This young man says--"My master
would never allow me to study grammar."--I asked him why? "The school
committee," said he, "forbid the colored children learning
grammar--they would not allow any but the white children to study
grammar."
It is a notorious fact that the major part of the white Americans
have, ever since we have been among them, tried to keep us ignorant
and make us believe that God made us and our children to be slaves to
them and theirs. _Oh! my God, have mercy on Christian Americans!!_
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Which is the reason the whites take the advantage of us.
[11] See his Notes on Virginia, page 213.
ARTICLE III.
OUR WRETCHEDNESS IN CONSEQUENCE OF THE PREACHERS OF THE RELIGION
OF JESUS CHRIST.
RELIGION, my brethren, is a substance of deep consideration among all
nations of the earth. The Pagans have a kind, as well as the
Mahometans, the Jews and the Christians. But pure and undefiled
religion, such as was preached by Jesus Christ and his apostles, is
hard to be found in all the earth. God, through his instrument, Moses,
handed a dispensation of his divine will to the children of Israel
after they had left Egypt for the land of Canaan, or of Promise, who
through hypocrisy, oppression, and unbelief, departed from the faith.
He then, by his apostles handed a dispensation of his, together with
the will of Jesus Christ, to the Europeans in Europe, who, in open
violation of which, have made _merchandize_ of us, and it does appear
as though they take this very dispensation to aid them in their
infernal depredations upon us. Indeed, the way in which religion was
and is conducted by the Europeans and their descendants, one might
believe it was a plan fabricated by themselves and the _devils_ to
oppress us. But hark! my master has taught me better than to believe
it--he has taught me that his gospel as it was preached by himself and
his apostles remains the same, notwithstanding Europe has tried to
mingle blood and oppression with it.
It is well known to the Christian world that Bartholomew Las Casas,
that very notoriously avaricious Catholic priest or preacher, and
adventurer with Columbus in his second voyage, proposed to his
countrymen, the Spaniards in Hispaniola, to import the Africans from
the Portuguese settlement in Africa, to dig up gold and silver, and
work their plantations for them, to effect which, he made a voyage
thence to Spain, and opened the subject to his master, Ferdinand, then
in declining health, who listened to the plan; but who died soon
after, and left it in the hands of his successor, Charles V.[12]--This
wretch, ("Las Cassas, the Preacher,") succeeded so well in his plans
of oppression, that in 1503, the first blacks had been imported into
the new world. Elated with this success, and stimulated by sordid
avarice only, he importuned Charles V. in 1511, to grant permission
to a Flemish merchant to import 4000 blacks at one time. Thus we see,
through the instrumentality of a pretended preacher of the gospel of
Jesus Christ our common master, our wretchedness first commenced in
America--where it has been continued from 1503 to this day, 1829. A
period of three hundred and twenty-six years. But two hundred and
nine, from 1620--when twenty of our fathers were brought into
Jamestown, Virginia, by a Dutch man-of-war, and sold off like brutes
to the highest bidders; and there is not a doubt in my mind, but that
tyrants are in hopes to perpetuate our miseries under them and their
children until the final consummation of all things. But if they do
not get dreadfully, deceived, it will be because God has forgotten
them.
The Pagans, Jews and Mahometans try to make proselytes to their
religions, and whatever human beings adopt their religions, they
extend to them their protection. But Christian Americans not only
hinder their fellow creatures, the Africans, but thousands of them
will _absolutely beat a coloured person nearly to death, if they catch
him on his knees, supplicating the throne of grace_. This barbarous
cruelty was by all the heathen nations of antiquity, and is by the
Pagans, Jews and Mahometans of the present day, left entirely to
Christian Americans to inflict on the Africans and their descendants
that their cup which is nearly full may be completed. I have known
tyrants or usurpers of human liberty in different parts of this
country take their fellow creatures, the colored people, and beat them
until they would scarcely leave life in them; what for? Why they say,
"The black devils had the audacity to be found _making
prayers and supplications to the God who made them!!!_"
Yes, I have known small collections of coloured people to have
convened together, for no other purpose than to worship God Almighty,
in spirit and in truth, to the best of their knowledge; when tyrants,
calling themselves _patrols_, would also convene and wait almost in
breathless silence for the poor coloured people to commence singing
and praying to the Lord our God, and as soon as they had commenced the
wretches would burst in upon them and drag them out and commence
beating them as they would rattle-snakes--many of whom, they would
beat so unmercifully, that they would hardly be able to crawl for
weeks and sometimes for months.--Yet the American ministers send out
missionaries to convert the heathen, while they keep us and our
children sunk at their feet in the most abject ignorance and
wretchedness that ever a people was afflicted with since the world
began. Will the Lord suffer this people to proceed much longer? Will
he not stop them in their career? Does he regard the heathens abroad,
more than the heathens among the Americans? Surely the Americans must
believe that God is partial, notwithstanding his Apostle Peter,
declared before Cornelius and others that he has no respect to
persons, but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh
righteousness is accepted with him.--
"The word," said he, "which God sent unto the children of
Israel, preaching peace, by Jesus Christ, (he is the Lord of
all.")[13]
Have not the Americans the Bible in their hands? Do they believe it?
Surely they do not. See how they treat us in open violation of the
Bible!! They no doubt will be greatly offended with me, but if God
does not awaken them, it will be, because they are superior to other
men, as they have represented themselves to be. Our divine Lord and
Master said
"all things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you,
do ye even so unto them."
But an American minister, with the Bible in his hand, holds us and our
children in the most abject slavery and wretchedness. Now I ask them,
would they like for us to hold them and their children in abject
slavery and wretchedness? No says one, that never can be done--you
are too abject and ignorant to do it--you are not men--you were made
to be slaves to us, to dig up gold and silver for us and our children.
Know this, my dear sirs, that although you treat us and our children
now, as you do your domestic beasts--yet the final result of all
future events are known but to God Almighty alone, who rules in the
armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and who
dethrones one earthly king and sits up another, as it seemeth good in
his holy sight. We may attribute these vicissitudes to what we please,
but the God of armies and of justice rules in heaven and in earth, and
the whole American people shall see and know it yet, to their
satisfaction. I have known pretended preachers of the gospel of my
Master, who not only held us as their natural inheritance, but treated
us with as much rigor as any Infidel or Deist in the world--just as
though they were intent only on taking our blood and groans to glorify
the Lord Jesus Christ. The wicked and ungodly, seeing their preachers
treat us with so much cruelty, they say: our preachers, who must be
right, if any body are, treat them like brutes, and why cannot
we?--They think it is no harm to keep them in slavery and put the whip
to them, and why cannot we do the same!--They being preachers of the
gospel of Jesus Christ, if it were any harm, they would surely preach
against their oppression and do their utmost to erase it from the
country; not only in one or two cities, but one continual cry would be
raised in all parts of this confederacy, and would cease only with the
complete overthrow of the system of slavery, in every part of the
country. But how far the American preachers are from preaching against
slavery and oppression, which have carried their country to the brink
of a precipice; to save them from plunging down the side of which,
will hardly be effected, will appear in the sequel of this paragraph,
which I shall narrate just as it transpired. I remember a Camp Meeting
in South Carolina, for which I embarked in a Steam Boat at
Charleston, and having been five or six hours on the water, we at last
arrived at the place of hearing, where was a very great concourse of
people, who were no doubt, collected together to hear the word of God,
(that some had collected barely as spectators to the scene, I will not
here pretend to doubt, however, that is left to themselves and their
God.) Myself and boat companions, having been there a little while, we
were all called up to hear; I among the rest, went up and took my
seat--being seated, I fixed myself in a complete position to hear the
word of my Saviour and to receive such as I thought was authenticated
by the Holy Scriptures; but to my no ordinary astonishment, our
Reverend gentleman got up and told us (colored people) that slaves
must be obedient to their masters--must do their duty to their masters
or be whipped--the whip was made for the backs of fools, &c. Here I
pause for a moment, to give the world time to consider what was my
surprise, to hear such preaching from a minister of my Master, whose
very gospel is that of peace and not of blood and whips, as this
pretended preacher tried to make us believe. What the American
preachers can think of us, I aver this day before my God, I have never
been able to define. They have newspapers and monthly periodicals,
which they receive in continual succession, but on the pages of which,
you will scarcely ever find a paragraph respecting slavery, which is
ten thousand times more injurious to this country than all the other
evils put together; and which will be the final overthrow of its
government, unless something is very speedily done; for their cup is
nearly full.--Perhaps they will laugh at, or make light of this; but I
tell you Americans! that unless you speedily alter your course, _you_
and your _Country are gone!!!!!!_ For God Almighty will tear up the
very face of the earth!!!! Will not that very remarkable passage of
Scripture be fulfilled on Christian Americans? Hear it Americans!!
"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still:--and be which
is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is
righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy,
let him be holy still."[14]
I hope that the Americans may hear, but I am afraid that they have
done us so much injury, and are so firm in the belief that our Creator
made us to be an inheritance to them forever, that their hearts will
be hardened, so that their destruction may be sure.--This language,
perhaps is too harsh for the American's delicate ears. But Oh
Americans! Americans!! I warn you in the name of the Lord, (whether
you will hear, or forbear,) to repent and reform, or you are
ruined!!!!!! Do you think that our blood is hidden from the Lord,
because you can hide it from the rest of the world by sending out
missionaries, and by your charitable deeds to the Greeks, Irish, &c.?
Will he not publish your secret crimes on the house top? Even here in
Boston, pride and prejudice have got to such a pitch, that in the very
houses erected to the Lord, they have built little places for the
reception of colored people, where they must sit during meeting, or
keep away from the house of God; and the preachers say nothing about
it--much less, go into the hedges and highways seeking the lost sheep
of the house of Israel, and try to bring them in, to their Lord and
Master. There are hardly a more wretched, ignorant, miserable, and
abject set of beings in all the world, than the blacks in the Southern
and Western sections of this country, under tyrants and devils. The
preachers of America cannot see them, but they can send out
missionaries to convert the heathens, notwithstanding. Americans!
unless you speedily alter your course of proceeding, if God Almighty
does not stop you, I say it in his name, that you may go on and do as
you please for ever, both in time and eternity--never fear any evil at
all!!!!!!!!
[Hand->] ADDITION.--The preachers and people of the United States
form societies against Free Masonry and Intemperance, and write
against Sabbath breaking, Sabbath mails, Infidelity, &c. &c. But the
fountain head,[15] compared with which all those other evils are
comparatively nothing, and from the bloody and murderous head of
which, they receive no trifling support, is hardly noticed by the
Americans. This is a fair illustration of the state of society in this
country--it shows what a bearing _avarice_ has upon a people, when
they are nearly given up by the Lord to a hard heart and a reprobate
mind, in consequence of afflicting their fellow creatures. God suffers
some to go on until they are ruined for ever!! Will it be the case
with our brethren the whites of the United States of America? We hope
not--we would not wish to see them destroyed, notwithstanding they
have and do now treat us more cruel than any people have treated
another, on this earth since it came from the hands of its creator
(with the exception of the French and the Dutch, they treat us nearly
as bad as the Americans of the United States.) The will of God must
however, in spite of us, _be done_.
The English are the best friends the colored people have upon earth.
Tho' they have oppressed us a little, and have colonies now in the
West Indies, which oppress us _sorely_,--Yet notwithstanding they (the
English) have done one hundred times more for the melioration of our
condition, than all the other nations of the earth put together. The
blacks cannot but respect the English as a nation, notwithstanding
they have treated us a little cruel.
There is no intelligent _black man_ who knows any thing, but esteems a
real English man, let him see him in what part of the world he
will--for they are the greatest benefactors we have upon earth. We
have here and there, in other nations, good friends. But as a nation,
the English are our friends. [] look
above)
"and if, instead of the evils and sufferings, which we had
been the innocent cause of inflicting,"
&c. What this very learned statesman could have been thinking about,
when he said in his speech, "we had been the innocent cause of
inflicting," etc., I have never been able to conceive. Are Mr. Clay
and the rest of the Americans, innocent of the blood and groans of
our fathers and us, their children? Every individual may plead
innocence, if he pleases, but God will, before long, separate the
innocent from the guilty, unless something is speedily done--which I
suppose will hardly be, so that their destruction may be sure. Oh
Americans! let me tell you, in the name of the Lord, it will be good
for you, if you listen to the voice of the Holy Ghost, but if you do
not you are ruined!!!! Some of you are good men; but the will of my
God must be done. Those avaricious and ungodly tyrants among you, I am
awfully afraid will drag down the vengeance of God upon you.--When God
Almighty commences his battle on the continent of America, for the
oppression of his people, tyrants will wish they never were born.
But to return to Mr. Clay, whence I digressed. He says,
"It was proper and necessary distinctly to state, that he
understood it constituted no part of the object of this
meeting, to touch or agitate in the slightest degree, a
delicate question, connected with another portion of the
coloured population of our country. It was not proposed to
deliberate upon or consider at all, any question of
emancipation, or that which was connected with the abolition
of slavery. It was upon that condition alone, he was sure,
that many gentlemen from the South and the West, whom he saw
present, had attended, or could be expected to co-operate.
It was on that condition only, that he himself had
attended."
--That is to say, to fix a plan to get those of the coloured people,
who are said to be free, away from among those of our brethren whom
they unjustly hold in bondage, so that they may be enabled to keep
them the more secure in ignorance and wretchedness, to support them
and their children, and consequently they would have the more obedient
slaves. For if the free are allowed to stay among the slaves, they
will have intercourse together, and, of course, the free will learn
the slaves _bad habits_, by teaching them that they are MEN, as
well as other people, and certainly _ought_, and _must_ be FREE.
I presume, that every intelligent man of colour must have some idea of
Mr. Henry Clay, originally of Virginia, but now of Kentucky; they know
too, perhaps, whether he is a friend, or a foe, to the coloured
citizens of this country, and of the world. This gentleman, according
to his own words, had been highly favoured and blessed of the Lord,
though he did not acknowledge it; but to the contrary, he acknowledged
men, for all the blessings which God had favoured him. At a public
dinner given him at Fowler's Garden, Lexington, Kentucky, he delivered
a public speech to a very large concourse of people--in the concluding
clause of which, he says,
"And now, my friends and fellow citizens, I cannot part from
you, on possibly the last occasion of my ever publicly
addressing you, without reiterating the expression of my
thanks, from a heart overflowing with gratitude. I came
among you, now more than thirty years ago, an orphan boy
pennyless, a stranger to you all, without friends, without
the favour of the great, you took me up, cherished me,
protected me, honoured me, you have constantly poured upon
me a bold and unabated stream of innumerable favors, time
which wears out every thing has increased and strengthened
your affection for me. When I seemed deserted by almost the
whole world, and assailed by almost every tongue, and pen,
and press, you have fearlessly and manfully stood by me,
with unsurpassed zeal and undiminished friendship. When I
felt as if I should sink beneath the storm of abuse and
detraction, which was violently raging around me, I have
found myself upheld and sustained by your encouraging voices
and approving smiles. I have doubtless, committed many
faults and indiscretions, over which you have thrown the
broad mantle of your charity. But I can say, and in the
presence of God and this assembled multitude, I will say,
that I have honestly and faithfully served my country--that
I have never wronged it--and that, however unprepared, I
lament that I am to appear in the Divine presence on other
accounts, I invoke the stern justice of his judgment on my
public conduct without the slightest apprehension of his
displeasure."
Hearken to this statesman indeed, but no philanthropist, whom God sent
into Kentucky, an orphan boy, pennyless and friendless, where he not
only gave him a plenty of friends and the comforts of life, but raised
him almost to the very highest honour in the nation, where his great
talents, with which the Lord has been pleased to bless him, has gained
for him the affection of a great portion of the people with whom he
had to do. But what has this gentleman done for the Lord, after having
done so much for him? The Lord has a suffering people, whose moans and
groans at his feet for deliverance from oppression and wretchedness,
pierce the very throne of Heaven, and call loudly on the God of
Justice, to be revenged. Now what this gentleman who is so highly
favored of the Lord, has done to liberate those miserable victims of
oppression, shall appear before the world, by his letters to Mr.
Gallatin, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Great
Britain, dated June 19, 1826. Though Mr. Clay was writing for the
states, yet nevertheless, it appears, from the very face of his
letters to that gentleman, that he was as anxious, if not more so, to
get those free people and sink them into wretchedness, as his
constituents for whom he wrote.
The Americans of North and of South America, including the West India
Islands--no trifling portion of whom were, for stealing, murdering,
&c. compelled to flee from Europe, to save their necks or banishment,
have effected their escape to this continent, where God blessed them
with all the comforts of life--He gave them a plenty of every thing
calculated to do them good--not satisfied with this, however, they
wanted slaves, and wanted us for their slaves, who belong to the Holy
Ghost, and no other, who we shall have to serve instead of tyrants. I
say, the Americans want us, the property of the Holy Ghost, to serve
them. But there is a day fast approaching when (unless there is a
universal repentance on the part of the whites, which will scarcely
take place--they have got to be so hardened in consequence of our
blood, and so wise in their own conceit.) To be plain and candid with
you, Americans! I say that the day is fast approaching when there will
be a greater time on the continent of America than ever was witnessed
upon this earth since it came from the hands of its Creator. Some of
you have done us so much injury that you will never be able to repent.
Your cup must be filled. You want us for your slaves and shall have
enough of us--God is just, _who will give you your fill of us_. But
Mr. Henry Clay, speaking to Mr. Gallatin respecting coloured people
who had effected their escape from the U. States (or to them _hell
upon earth!!_) to the hospitable shores of Canada[18] from whence it
would cause more than the lives of the Americans to get them, to
plunge into wretchedness--he says:
"The General Assembly of Kentucky, one of the states which
is most affected by the escape of slaves into Upper Canada,
has again, at their session which has just terminated,
invoked the interposition of the General Government. In the
treaty which has been recently concluded with the United
Mexican States, and which is now under the consideration of
the Senate, provision is made for the restoration of
fugitive slaves. As it appears from your statements of what
passed on that subject with the British Plenipotentiaries,
that they admitted the correctness of the principle of
restoration, it is hoped that you will be able to succeed in
making satisfactory arrangements."
There are a series of these letters, all of which are to the same
amount; some however presenting a face more of his own responsibility.
I wonder what would this gentleman think if the Lord should give him
among the rest of his blessings enough of slaves? Could he blame any
other being but himself? Do we not belong to the Holy Ghost? What
business has he or any body else, to be sending letters about the
world respecting us? Can we not go where we want to, as well as other
people, only if we obey the voice of the Holy Ghost? This gentleman,
(Henry Clay) not only took an active part in this colonizing plan, but
was absolutely chairman of a meeting held at Washington the 21st day
of December, 1816[19] to agitate the subject of colonizing us in
Africa.--Now I appeal and ask every citizen of these United States and
of the world, both _white_ and _black_, who has any knowledge of Mr.
Clay's public labors for these States--I want you candidly to answer
the Lord, who sees the secrets of your hearts, Do you believe that Mr.
Henry Clay, late Secretary of State, and now in Kentucky, is a friend
to the blacks, further than his personal interest extends? Is it not
his greatest object and glory upon earth to sink us into miseries and
wretchedness by making slaves of us, to work his plantation to enrich
him and his family? Does he care a pinch of snuff about
Africa--whether it remains a land of Pagans and of blood, or of
Christians, so long as he gets enough of her sons and daughters to dig
up gold and silver for him? If he had no slave, and could obtain them
in no other way if it were not repugnant to the laws of his country,
which prohibit the importation of slaves, (which act was indeed more
through apprehension than humanity) would he not try to import a few
from Africa to work his farm? Would he work in the hot sun to earn his
bread if he could make an African work for nothing, particularly if he
could keep him in ignorance and make him believe that God made him for
nothing else but to work for him? Is not Mr. Clay a white man, and too
delicate to work in the hot sun? Was he not made by his Creator to sit
in the shade, and make the blacks work without remuneration for their
services, to support him and his family? I have been for some time
taking notice of this man's speeches and public writings, but never to
my knowledge have I seen any thing in his writings which insisted on
the emancipation of slavery, which has almost ruined his country. Thus
we see the depravity of men's hearts, when in pursuit only of
gain--particularly when they oppress their fellow creatures to obtain
that gain--God suffers some to go on until they are lost for ever.
This same Mr. Clay wants to know what he has done to merit the
disapprobation of the American people. In a public speech delivered by
him, he asked:
"Did I involve my country in an unnecessary war?"
to merit the censure of the Americans--
"Did I bring obloquy upon the nation, or the people whom I
represented--did I ever lose an opportunity to advance the
fame, honor and prosperity of this State and the Union?"
How astonishing it is, for a man who knows so much about God and his
ways, as Mr. Clay, to ask such frivolous questions. Does he believe
that a man of his talents and standing in the midst of a people, will
get along unnoticed by the penetrating and all-seeing eye of God who
is continually taking cognizance of the hearts of men? Is not God
against him, for advocating the murderous cause of slavery? If God is
against him, what can the Americans, together with the whole world do
for him? Can they save him from the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ?
I shall now pass in review the speech of Mr. Elias B. Caldwell, Esq.
of the District of Columbia, extracted from the same page on which Mr.
Clay's will be found. Mr. Caldwell, giving his opinion respecting us,
at that ever memorable meeting, he says:
"The more you improve the condition of these people, the
more you cultivate their minds, the more miserable you make
them in their present state. You give them a higher relish
for those privileges which they can never attain, and turn
what we intend for a blessing into a curse."
Let me ask this benevolent man, what he means by a blessing intended
for us? Did he mean sinking us and our children into ignorance and
wretchedness, to support him and his family? What he meant will appear
evident and obvious to the most ignorant in the world. [Hand->] See
Mr. Caldwell's intended blessings for us, O! my Lord!!!
"No," said he, "if they must remain in their present
situation, keep them in the _lowest state of degradation and
ignorance_. The nearer you bring them to the condition of
brutes, the better chance do you give them of possessing
their _apathy_."
Here I pause to get breath, having labored to extract the above clause
of this gentleman's speech, at that colonizing meeting. I presume that
every body knows the meaning of the word "_apathy_"--if they do not,
let him get Sheridan's Dictionary, where he will find it explained in
full. I solicit the attention of the world to the foregoing part of
Mr. Caldwell's speech, that they may see what man will do with his
fellow men, when he has them under his feet. To what length will not
man go in iniquity, when given up to a hard heart and reprobate mind,
in consequence of blood and oppression? The last clause of this
speech, which was written in a very artful manner and which will be
taken for the speech of a friend, without close examination and deep
penetration, I shall now present. He says,
"Surely Americans ought to be the last people on earth to
advocate such slavish doctrines, to cry peace and
contentment to those who are deprived of the privileges of
civil liberty, they who have so largely partaken of its
blessings, who know so well how to estimate its value, ought
to be among the foremost to extend it to others."
The real sense and meaning of the last part of Mr. Caldwell's speech
is, get the free people of colour away to Africa, from among the
slaves, where they may at once be blessed and happy, and our slaves
will be contented to rest in ignorance and wretchedness, to dig up
gold and silver for us and our children. Men have indeed, got to be
so cunning, these days, that it would take the eye of a Solomon to
penetrate and find them out.
Extract from the speech of Mr. John Randolph, of Roanoke.
Said he:--
"It had been properly observed by the Chairman, as well as
by the gentlemen from this District (meaning Messrs. Clay
and Caldwell) that there was nothing in the proposition
submitted to consideration which in the smallest degree
touches another very important and delicate question, which
ought to be left as much out of view as possible, (Negro
Slavery.)[20]
"There was no fear, Mr. R. said, that this proposition would
alarm the slave-holders; they had been accustomed to think
seriously of the subject. There was a popular work on
agriculture, by John Taylor of Carolina, which was widely
circulated, and much confided in, in Virginia. In that book,
much read because coming from a practical man, this
description of people, [referring to us half free ones,]
were pointed out as a great evil. They had indeed been held
up as the greater bug-bear to every man who feels an
inclination to emancipate his slaves, not to create in the
bosom of his country so great a nuisance. If a place could
be provided for their reception, and a mode of sending them
hence, there were hundreds, nay thousands of citizens, who
would, by manumitting their slaves, relieve themselves from
the cares attendant on their possession. The great
slave-holder, Mr. R. said, was frequently a mere sentry at
his own door--bound to stay on his plantation to see that
his slaves were properly treated, &c. Mr. R. concluded by
saying that he had thought it necessary to make these
remarks, being a slave-holder himself, to show that, so far
from being connected with abolition of slavery, the measure
proposed would prove one of greatest securities to enable
the master to keep in possession his own property."
Here is a demonstrative proof, of a plan got up by a gang of
slave-holders to select the free people of colour from among the
slaves, that our more miserable brethren may be the better secured in
ignorance and wretchedness, to work their farms and dig their mines,
and thus go on enriching the christians with their blood and groans.
What our brethren could have been thinking about, who have left their
native land and home and gone away to Africa I am unable to say. This
country is as much ours as it is the whites, whether they will admit
it now or not, they will see and believe it by and by. They tell us
about prejudice--what have we to do with it? Their prejudices will be
obliged to fall like lightning to the ground, in succeeding
generations; not, however with the will and consent of all the whites,
for some will be obliged to hold on to the old adage, viz.: the blacks
are not men, but were made to be an inheritance to us and our children
forever!!!!!! I hope the residue of the coloured people will stand
still and see the salvation of God, and the miracle which he will work
for our delivery from wretchedness under the christians!!!!!!
[Hand->] ADDITION.--If any of us see fit to go away, go to those who
have been for many years, and are now our greatest earthly friends and
benefactors--the English. If not so, go to our brethren, the Haytians,
who, according to their word, is bound to protect and comfort us. The
Americans say that we are ungrateful--but I ask them for heaven's
sake, what we should be grateful to them for--for murdering our
fathers and mothers?--Or do they wish us to return thanks to them for
chaining and handcuffing us, branding us, cramming fire down our
throats, or for keeping us in slavery, and beating us nearly or quite
to death to make us work in ignorance and miseries, to support them
and their families. They certainly think that we are a gang of fools.
Those among them, who have volunteered their services for our
redemption, though we are unable to compensate them for their labors,
we nevertheless thank them from the bottom of our hearts, and have our
eyes steadfastly fixed upon them, and their labors of love for God and
man. But do slave-holders think that we thank them for keeping us in
miseries, and taking our lives by the inches? [] See the African Repository and
Colonial Journal, from its commencement to the present day--see how we
are, through the medium of that periodical, abused and held up by the
Americans, as the greatest nuisance to society, and throat-cutters in
the world.) But the Lord sees their actions. Americans!
notwithstanding you have and do continue to treat us more cruel than
any heathen nation ever did a people it had subjected to the same
condition that you have us. Now let us reason--I mean you of the
United States, whom I believe God designs to save from destruction, if
you will hear. For I declare to you, whether you believe it or not,
that there are some on the continent of America, who will never be
able to repent. God will surely destroy them, to show you his
disapprobation of the murders they and you have inflicted on us. I
say, let us reason; had you not better take our body, while you have
it in your power, and while we are yet ignorant and wretched, not
knowing but a little, give us education, and teach us the pure
religion of our Lord and Master, which is calculated to make the lion
lay down in peace with the lamb, and which millions of you have beaten
us nearly to death for trying to obtain since we have been among you,
and thus, at once, gain our affection, while we are ignorant? Remember
Americans, that we must and shall be free, and enlightened as you are,
will you wait until we shall, under God, obtain our liberty by the
crushing arm of power? Will it not be dreadful for you? I speak
Americans for your good. We must and shall be free I say, in spite of
you. You may do your best to keep us in wretchedness and misery, to
enrich you and your children but God will deliver us from under you.
And wo, wo, will be to you if we have to obtain our freedom by
fighting. Throw away your fears and prejudices then, and enlighten us
and treat us like men, and we will like you more than we do now hate
you,[27] and tell us now no more about colonization, for America is as
much our country, as it is yours.--Treat us like men, and there is no
danger but we will all live in peace and happiness together. For we
are not like you, hard hearted, unmerciful, and unforgiving. What a
happy country this will be, if the whites will listen. What nation
under heaven, will be able to do any thing with us, unless God gives
us up into his hand? But Americans, I declare to you, while you keep
us and our children in bondage, and treat us like brutes, to make us
support you and your families, we cannot be your friends. You do not
look for it, do you? Treat us then like men, and we will be your
friends. And there is not a doubt in my mind, but that the whole of
the past will be sunk into oblivion, and we yet, under God, will
become a united and happy people. The whites may say it is impossible,
but remember that nothing is impossible with God.
The Americans may say or do as they please, but they have to raise us
from the condition of brutes to that of respectable men, and to make a
national acknowledgement to us for the wrongs they have inflicted on
us. As unexpected, strange, and wild as these propositions may to some
appear, it is no less a fact, that unless they are complied with, the
Americans of the United States, though they may for a little while
escape, God will yet weigh them in a balance, and if they are not
superior to other men, as they have represented themselves to be, he
will give them wretchedness to their very heart's content.
And now brethren, having concluded these four Articles, I submit them,
together with my Preamble, dedicated to the Lord for your inspection,
in language so very simple, that the most ignorant, who can read at
all, may easily understand--of which you may make the best you
possibly can.[28] Should tyrants take it into their heads to
emancipate any of you, remember that your freedom is your natural
right. You are men, as well as they, and instead of returning thanks
to them for your freedom, return it to the Holy Ghost, who is your
rightful owner. If they do not want to part with your labours, which
have enriched them, let them keep you, and my word for it, that God
Almighty, will break their strong band. Do you believe this my
brethren?--See my Address delivered before the General Coloured
Association of Massachusetts, which may be found in Freedom's Journal,
for Dec. 20, 1828.--See the last clause of that Address. Whether you
believe it or not, I tell you that God will dash tyrants, in
combination with devils, into atoms, and will bring you out from your
wretchedness and miseries, under these _Christian People!!!!!!_
Those philanthropists and lovers of the human family, who have
volunteered their services for our redemption from wretchedness, have
a high claim on our gratitude, and we should always view them as our
greatest earthly benefactors.
If any are anxious to ascertain who I am, know the world, that I am
one of the oppressed, degraded and wretched sons of Africa, rendered
so by the avaricious and unmerciful, among the whites.--If any wish to
plunge me into the wretched incapacity of a slave, or murder me for
the truth, know ye, that I am in the hand of God, and at your
disposal. I count my life not dear unto me, but I am ready to be
offered at any moment. For what is the use of living when in fact I am
dead. But remember, Americans, that as miserable, wretched, degraded
and abject as you have made us in preceding, and in this generation,
to support you and your families, that some of you (whites) on the
continent of America, will yet curse the day that you ever were born.
You want slaves, and want us for your slaves!!! My colour will yet,
root some of you out of the very face of the earth!!!!!! You may doubt
it if you please. I know that thousands will doubt--they think they
have us so well secured in wretchedness, to them and their children,
that it is impossible for such things to occur. So did the
antideluvians doubt Noah, until the day in which the flood came and
swept them away. So did the Sodomites doubt, until Lot had got out of
the City, and God rained down fire and brimstone from heaven, upon
them and burnt them up. So did the king of Egypt doubt the very
existence of a God, he said, "who is the Lord, that I should let
Israel go?" Did he not find to his sorrow, who the Lord was, when he
and all his mighty men of war, were smothered to death in the Red
Sea?--So did the Romans doubt, many of them were really so ignorant,
that they thought the world of mankind were made to be slaves to them;
just as many of the Americans think now, of my colour.--But they got
dreadfully deceived. When men got their eyes opened, they made the
murderers scamper. The way in which they cut their tyrannical throats,
was not much inferior to the way the Romans or murderers, served them,
when they held them in wretchedness and degradation under their feet.
So would Christian Americans doubt, if God should send an Angel from
heaven to preach their funeral sermon. The fact is, the Christians
having a name to live, while they are dead, think that God will screen
them on that ground.
See the hundreds and thousands of us that are thrown into the seas by
Christians, and murdered by them in other ways. They cram us into
their vessel holds in chains and in hand-cuffs--men, women and
children, all together!! O! save us, we pray thee, thou God of heaven
and of earth, from the devouring hands of the white Christians!!!!!!
Oh! thou Alpha and Omega!
The beginning and the end,
Enthron'd thou art, in Heaven above,
Surrounded by angels there:
From whence thou seest the miseries
To which we are subject;
The whites have murder'd us, O God!
And kept us ignorant of thee.
Not satisfied with this, my Lord!
They throw us in the seas:
Be pleas'd, we pray, for Jesus' sake,
To save us from their grasp.
We believe that, for thy glory's sake,
Thou wilt deliver us;
But that thou may'st effect these things,
Thy glory must be sought.
* * * * *
In conclusion, I ask the candid and unprejudiced of the whole world,
to search the pages of historians diligently, and see if the
Antediluvians--the Sodomites--the Egyptians--the Babylonians--the
Ninevites--the Carthagenians--the Persians--the Macedonians--the
Greeks--the Romans--the Mahometans--the Jews--or devils, ever treated
a set of human beings, as the white Christians of America do us, the
blacks, or Africans.--I also ask the attention of the world of mankind
to the declaration of these very American people, of the United
States.
_A Declaration made July 4, 1776._
It says,[29]
"When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the
laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent
respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation. We hold these truths to be self evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to
secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of
these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to
abolish it, and to institute a new government laying its
foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in
such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
governments long established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath
shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils
are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object,
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it
is their right, it is their duty to throw off such
government, and to provide new guards for their future
security."
See your declaration, Americans!! Do you understand your own language?
Hear your language, proclaimed to the world, July 4, 1776--
[Hand->] "We hold these truths to be self evident--that
_ALL_ MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL! _that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!!_"
Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of
Independence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel
and unmerciful fathers on ourselves on our fathers and on us, men who
have never given your fathers or you the least provocation!!!
Hear your language further!
[Hand->] "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their _right_,
it is their _duty_, to throw off such government, and to
provide new guards for their future security."
Now, Americans! I ask you candidly, was your sufferings under Great
Britain one hundredth part as cruel and tyrannical as you have
rendered ours under you? Some of you, no doubt, believe that we will
never throw off your murderous government, and "provide new guards for
our future security." If Satan has made you believe it, will he not
deceive you?[30] Do the whites say, I being a black man, ought to be
humble, which I readily admit? I ask them, ought they not to be as
humble as I? or do they think they can measure arms with Jehovah? Will
not the Lord yet humble them? or will not these very coloured people,
whom they now treat worse than brutes, yet under God, humble them low
down enough? Some of the whites are ignorant enough to tell us, that
we ought to be submissive to them, that they may keep their feet on
our throats. And if we do not submit to be beaten to death by them, we
are bad creatures and of course must be damned, &c. If any man wishes
to hear this doctrine openly preached to us by the American preachers,
let him go into the Southern and Western sections of this country--I
do not speak from hearsay--what I have written, is what I have seen
and heard myself. No man may think that my book is made up of
conjecture--I have travelled and observed nearly the whole of those
things myself, and what little I did not get by my own observation, I
received from those among the whites and blacks, in whom the greatest
confidence may be placed.
The Americans may be as vigilant as they please, but they cannot be
vigilant enough for the Lord, neither can they hide themselves, where
he will not find and bring them out.
* * * * *
1 Thy presence why withdraw'st thou, Lord?
Why hid'st thou now thy face,
When dismal times of deep distress
Call for thy wonted grace?
2 The wicked, swell'd with lawless pride,
Have made the poor their prey;
O let them fall by those designs
Which they for others lay.
3 For straight they triumph, if success
Their thriving crimes attend;
And sordid wretches, whom God hates,
Perversely they commend.
4 To own a pow'r above themselves
Their haughty pride disdains;
And, therefore, in their stubborn mind
No thought of God remains.
5 Oppressive methods they pursue,
And all their foes they slight;
Because thy judgements, unobserved,
Are far above their sight.
6 They fondly think their prosp'rous state
Shall unmolested be;
They think their vain designs shall thrive,
From all misfortune free.
7 Vain and deceitful is their speech,
With curses fill'd, and lies;
By which the mischief of their heart
They study to disguise.
8 Near public roads they lie conceal'd,
And all their art employ,
The innocent and poor at once
To rifle and destroy.
9 Not lions crouching in their dens,
Surprise their heedless prey
With greater cunning, or express
More savage rage than they.
10 Sometimes they act the harmless man,
And modest looks they wear;
That so, deceiv'd, the poor may less
Their sudden onset fear
PART II.
11 For God, they think, no notice takes
Of their unrighteous deeds;
He never minds the suff'ring poor,
Nor their oppression heeds.
12 But thou, O Lord, at length arise,
Stretch forth thy mighty arm,
And by the greatness of thy pow'r,
Defend the poor from harm.
13 No longer let the wicked vaunt,
And, proudly boasting, say,
"Tush, God regards not what we do;
He never will repay."--_Common Prayer Book._
* * * * *
1 Shall I for fear of feeble man,
The Spirit's coarse in me restrain?
Or, undismay'd in deed and word.
Be a true witness of my Lord.
2 Aw'd by mortal's frown shall I
Conceal the word of God Most High!
How then before thee shall I dare
To stand, or how thine anger bear?
3 Shall I, to sooth th' unholy throng,
Soften the troth, or smooth my tongue,
To gain earth's gilded toys, or flee
The cross endur'd, my Lord, by thee?
4 What then is he whose scorn I dread?
Whose wrath or hate makes me afraid
A man! an heir of death! a slave
To sin! a bubble on the wave!
5 Yea, let men rage: since thou wilt spread
Thy shadowing wings around my head:
Since in all pain thy tender love
Will still my sure refreshment prove.
_Wesley's Collection._
FOOTNOTES:
[17] See Dr. Torrey's Portraiture of Domestic Slavery in the United
States, page 85-86.
[18] Among the English, our real friends and benefactors.
[19] In the first edition of this work, it should read 1816, as above,
and not 1826, as it there appears.
[20] "Niger" is a word derived from the Latin, which was used by the
old Romans to designate inanimate beings which were black, such as
soot, pot, wood, house, &c. Also, of animals which they considered
inferior to the human species, as a black horse, cow, hog, bird, dog,
&c. The white Americans have applied this term to Africans, by way of
reproach for our color, to aggravate and heighten our miseries,
because they have their feet on our throats, and we cannot help
ourselves.
[21] See Freedom's Journal for Nov. 2d, 1827--vol. 1, No. 34.
[22] I mean those whose labors for the good, or rather destruction of
Jerusalem, and the Jews. Ceased before our Lord entered the Temple,
and over turned the tables of the Money Changers.
[23] How many millions souls of the human family have the blacks, beat
nearly to death, to keep them from learning to read the Word of God
and from writing. And telling lies about them, by holding them up to
the world as a tribe of TALKING APES, void of _intellect!!! incapable_
of LEARNING, &c.
[24] And still hold us up with indignity as being incapable of
acquiring knowledge!!! See the inconsistency of the assertions of
those wretches--they beat us inhumanly, sometimes almost to death, for
attempting to inform ourselves, by reading the _Word_ of our Maker,
and at the same time tell us, that we are beings _void of
intellect!!!!!_ How admirably their practices agree with their
professions in this case. Let me cry shame upon you Americans, for
such outrages upon human nature!!! If it were possible for the whites
always to keep us ignorant and miserable, and make us work to enrich
them and their children, and insult our feelings by representing us as
_talking Apes_, what would they do? But glory honour and praise to
Heaven's King, that the sons and daughters of Africa, will, in spite
of all the opposition of their enemies, stand forth in all the dignity
and glory that is granted by the Lord to his creature man.
[25] Those who are ignorant enough to go to Africa, the coloured
people ought to be glad to have them go, for if they are ignorant
enough to let the whites _fool_ them off to Africa, they would be no
small injury to us if they reside in this country.
[26] See St. Mathew's Gospel, chap, xviii. v. 6.
[27] You are not astonished at my saying we hate you, for if we are
men, we cannot but hate you, while you are treating us like dogs.
[28] Some of my brethren, who are sensible, do not take an interest in
enlightening the minds of our more ignorant brethren respecting this
_Book_, and in reading it to them, just as though they will not have
either to rise or fall by what is written in this book. Do they
believe that I would be so foolish as to put out a book of this kind,
without strict--ah! very strict commandments of the Lord!--Surely the
blacks and whites must think that I am ignorant enough. Do they think
that I would have the audacious wickedness to take the name of my God
in vain?
Notice, I said in the concluding clause of Article 3--I call God, I
call Angels, I call men to witness, that the destruction of the
Americans is at hand, and will be speedily consumated unless they
repent. Now I wonder if the world think that I would take the name of
God in this way in vain? What do they think I take God to be? Do they
suppose that I would trifle with that God who will not have his holy
name taken in vain?--He will show you and the world, in due time,
whether this book is for his glory, or written by me through envy to
the whites, as some have represented.
[29] See the Declaration of Independence of the United States.
[30] The Lord has not taught the Americans that we will not some day
or other throw off their chains and hand-cuffs, from our hands and
feet, and their devilish lashes (which some of them shall have enough
of yet) from off our backs.
AN ADDRESS
TO THE SLAVES OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA
(REJECTED BY THE NATIONAL CONVENTION, 1843.)
BY HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET.
PREFACE.
The following Address was first read at the National Convention held
at Buffalo, N.Y., in 1843. Since that time it has been slightly
modified, retaining, however, all of its original doctrine. The
document elicited more discussion than any other paper that was ever
brought before that, or any other deliberative body of colored
persons, and their friends. Gentlemen who opposed the Address, based
their objections on these grounds. 1. That the document was war-like,
and encouraged insurrection; and 2. That if the Convention should
adopt it, that those delegates who lived near the borders of the slave
states, would not dare to return to their homes. The Address was
rejected by a small majority; and now in compliance with the earnest
request of many who heard it, and in conformity to the wishes of
numerous friends who are anxious to see it, the author now gives it to
the public, praying God that this little book may be borne on the four
winds of heaven, until the principles it contains shall be understood
and adopted by every slave in the Union.
H.H.G.
Troy, N.Y., April 15, 1848.
ADDRESS TO THE SLAVES OF THE U.S.
BRETHREN AND FELLOW CITIZENS:
Your brethren of the north, east, and west have been accustomed to
meet together in National Conventions, to sympathize with each other,
and to weep over your unhappy condition. In these meetings we have
addressed all classes of the free, but we have never until this time,
sent a word of consolation and advice to you. We have been contented
in sitting still and mourning over your sorrows, earnestly hoping that
before this day, your sacred liberties would have been restored. But,
we have hoped in vain. Years have rolled on, and tens of thousands
have been borne on streams of blood, and tears, to the shores of
eternity. While you have been oppressed, we have also been partakers
with you; nor can we be free while you are enslaved. We therefore
write to you as being bound with you.
Many of you are bound to us, not only by the ties of a common
humanity, but we are connected by the more tender relations of
parents, wives, husbands, children, brothers, and sisters, and
friends. As such we most affectionately address you.
Slavery has fixed a deep gulf between you and us, and while it shuts
out from you the relief and consolation which your friends would
willingly render, it afflicts and persecutes you with a fierceness
which we might not expect to see in the fiends of hell. But still the
Almighty Father of Mercies has left to us a glimmering ray of hope,
which shines out like a lone star in a cloudy sky. Mankind are
becoming wiser, and better--the oppressor's power is fading, and you,
every day, are becoming better informed, and more numerous. Your
grievances, brethren, are many. We shall not attempt, in this short
address, to present to the world, all the dark catalogue of this
nation's sins, which have been committed upon an innocent people. Nor
is it indeed, necessary, for you feel them from day to day, and all
the civilized world look upon them with amazement.
Two hundred and twenty-seven years ago, the first of our injured race
were brought to the shores of America. They came not with glad spirits
to select their homes, in the New World. They came not with their own
consent, to find an unmolested enjoyment of the blessings of this
fruitful soil. The first dealings which they had with those calling
themselves Christians, exhibited to them the worst features of corrupt
and sordid hearts; and convinced them that no cruelty is too great, no
villainy, and no robbery too abhorrent for even enlightened men to
perform, when influenced by avarice, and lust. Neither did they come
flying upon the wings of Liberty, to a land of freedom. But, they came
with broken hearts, from their beloved native land, and were doomed to
unrequited toil, and deep degradation. Nor did the evil of their
bondage end at their emancipation by death. Succeeding generations
inherited their chains, and millions have come from eternity into
time, and have returned again to the world of spirits, cursed, and
ruined by American Slavery.
The propagators of the system, or their immediate ancestors very soon
discovered its growing evil, and its tremendous wickedness, and secret
promises were made to destroy it. The gross inconsistency of a people
holding slaves, who had themselves "ferried o'er the wave," for
freedom's sake, was too apparent to be entirely overlooked. The voice
of Freedom cried, "emancipate your Slaves." Humanity supplicated with
tears, for the deliverance of the children of Africa. Wisdom urged her
solemn plea. The bleeding captive plead his innocence, and pointed to
Christianity who stood weeping at the cross. Jehovah frowned upon the
nefarious institution, and thunderbolts, red with vengeance, struggled
to leap forth to blast the guilty wretches who maintained it. But all
was vain. Slavery had stretched its dark wings of death over the land,
the Church stood silently by--the priests prophesied falsely, and the
people loved to have it so. Its throne is established, and now it
reigns triumphantly.
Nearly three millions of your fellow citizens, are prohibited by law,
and public opinion, (which in this country is stronger than law), from
reading the Book of Life. Your intellect has been destroyed as much as
possible, and every ray of light they have attempted to shut out from
your minds. The oppressors themselves have become involved in the
ruin. They have become weak, sensual, and rapacious. They have cursed
you--they have cursed themselves--they have cursed the earth which
they have trod. In the language of a Southern statesman, we can truly
say, "even the wolf, driven back long since by the approach of man,
now returns after the lapse of a hundred years, and howls amid the
desolations of slavery."
The colonists threw the blame upon England. They said that the mother
country entailed the evil upon them, and that they would rid
themselves of it if they could. The world thought they were sincere,
and the philanthropic pitied them. But time soon tested their
sincerity. In a few years, the colonists grew strong and severed
themselves from the British Government. Their Independence was
declared, and they took their station among the sovereign powers of
the earth. The declaration was a glorious document. Sages admired it,
and the patriotic of every nation reverenced the Godlike sentiments
which it contained. When the power of Government returned to their
hands, did they emancipate the slaves? No; they rather added new links
to our chains. Were they ignorant of the principles of Liberty?
Certainly they were not. The sentiments of their revolutionary orators
fell in burning eloquence upon their hearts, and with one voice they
cried, LIBERTY OR DEATH. O, what a sentence was that! It ran from soul
to soul like electric fire, and nerved the arm of thousands to fight
in the holy cause of Freedom. Among the diversity of opinions that are
entertained in regard to physical resistance, there are but a few
found to gainsay that stern declaration. We are among those who do
not.
SLAVERY! How much misery is comprehended in that single word. What
mind is there that does not shrink from its direful effects? Unless
the image of God is obliterated from the soul, all men cherish the
love of Liberty. The nice discerning political economist does not
regard the sacred right, more than the untutored African who roams in
the wilds of Congo. Nor has the one more right to the full enjoyment
of his freedom than the other. In every man's mind the good seeds of
liberty are planted, and he who brings his fellow down so low, as to
make him contented with a condition of slavery, commits the highest
crime against God and man. Brethren, your oppressors aim to do this.
They endeavor to make you as much like brutes as possible. When they
have blinded the eyes of your mind--when they have embittered the
sweet waters of life--when they have shut out the light which shines
from the word of God--then, and not till then has American slavery
done its perfect work.
TO SUCH DEGRADATION IT IS SINFUL IN THE EXTREME FOR YOU TO MAKE
VOLUNTARY SUBMISSION. The divine commandments, you are in duty
bound to reverence, and obey. If you do not obey them you will surely
meet with the displeasure of the Almighty. He requires you to love him
supremely, and your neighbor as yourself--to keep the Sabbath day
holy--to search the Scriptures--and bring up your children with
respect for his laws, and to worship no other God but him. But slavery
sets all these at naught and hurls defiance in the face of Jehovah.
The forlorn condition in which you are placed does not destroy your
moral obligation to God. You are not certain of Heaven, because you
suffer yourselves to remain in a state of slavery, where you cannot
obey the commandments of the Sovereign of the universe. If the
ignorance of slavery is a passport to heaven, then it is a blessing,
and no curse, and you should rather desire its perpetuity than its
abolition. God will not receive slavery, nor ignorance, nor any other
state of mind, for love, and obedience to him. Your condition does not
absolve you from your moral obligation. The diabolical injustice by
which your liberties are cloven down, NEITHER GOD, NOR ANGELS, OR
JUST MEN, COMMAND YOU TO SUFFER FOR A SINGLE MOMENT. THEREFORE IT IS
YOUR SOLEMN AND IMPERATIVE DUTY TO USE EVERY MEANS, BOTH MORAL,
INTELLECTUAL, AND PHYSICAL, THAT PROMISE SUCCESS. If a band of
heathen men should attempt to enslave a race of Christians, and to
place their children under the influence of some false religion,
surely, heaven would frown upon the men who would not resist such
aggression, even to death. If, on the other hand, a band of Christians
should attempt to enslave a race of heathen men and to entail slavery
upon them, and to keep them in heathenism in the midst of
Christianity, the God of heaven would smile upon every effort which
the injured might make to disenthral themselves.
Brethren, it is as wrong for your lordly oppressors to keep you in
slavery, as it was for the man thief to steal our ancestors from the
coast of Africa. You should therefore now use the same manner of
resistance, as would have been just in our ancestors, when the bloody
foot prints of the first remorseless soul thief was placed upon the
shores of our fatherland. The humblest peasant is as free in the sight
of God, as the proudest monarch that ever swayed a sceptre. Liberty is
a spirit sent out from God, and like its great Author, is no respecter
of persons.
Brethren, the time has come when you must act for yourselves. It is an
old and true saying, that "if hereditary bondmen would be free, they
must themselves strike the blow." You can plead your own cause, and do
the work of emancipation better than any others. The nations of the
old world are moving in the great cause of universal freedom, and some
of them at least, will ere long, do you justice. The combined powers
of Europe have placed their broad seal of disapprobation upon the
African slave trade. But in the slave holding parts of the United
States, the trade is as brisk as ever. They buy and sell you as
though you were brute beasts. The North has done much--her opinion of
slavery in the abstract is known. But in regard to the South, we adopt
the opinion of the New York Evangelist--"We have advanced so far, that
the cause apparently waits for a more effectual door to be thrown open
than has been yet." We are about to point you to that more effectual
door. Look around you, and behold the bosoms of your loving wives,
heaving with untold agonies! Hear the cries of your poor children!
Remember the stripes your fathers bore. Think of the torture and
disgrace of your noble mothers. Think of your wretched sisters, loving
virtue and purity, as they are driven into concubinage, and are
exposed to the unbridled lusts of incarnate devils. Think of the
undying glory that hangs around the ancient name of Africa:--and
forget not that you are native-born American citizens, and as such,
you are justly entitled to all the rights that are granted to the
freest. Think how many tears you have poured out upon the soil which
you have cultivated with unrequited toil, and enriched with your
blood; and then go to your lordly enslavers, and tell them plainly,
that YOU ARE DETERMINED TO BE FREE. Appeal to their sense of justice,
and tell them that they have no more right to oppress you, than you
have to enslave them. Entreat them to remove the grievous burdens
which they have imposed upon you, and to remunerate you for your
labor. Promise them renewed diligence in the cultivation of the soil,
if they will render to you an equivalent for your services. Point them
to the increase of happiness and prosperity in the British West
Indies, since the act of Emancipation. Tell them in language which
they cannot misunderstand, of the exceeding sinfulness of slavery, and
of a future judgment, and of the righteous retributions of an
indignant God. Inform them that all you desire, is FREEDOM, and that
nothing else will suffice. Do this, and for ever after cease to toil
for the heartless tyrants, who give you no other reward but stripes
and abuse. If they then commence the work of death, they, and not you,
will be responsible for the consequences. You had far better all
die--_die immediately_, than live slaves, and entail your wretchedness
upon your posterity. If you would be free in this generation, here is
your only hope. However much you and all of us may desire it, there is
not much hope of Redemption without the shedding of blood. If you must
bleed, let it all come at once--rather, _die freemen, than live to be
slaves_. It is impossible, like the children of Israel, to make a
grand Exodus from the land of bondage. THE PHARAOHS ARE ON BOTH SIDES
OF THE BLOOD-RED WATERS! You cannot remove en masse, to the dominions
of the British Queen--nor can you pass through Florida, and overrun
Texas, and at last find peace in Mexico. The propagators of American
slavery are spending their blood and treasure, that they may plant the
black flag in the heart of Mexico, and riot in the halls of the
Montezumas. In the language of the Rev. Robert Hall, when addressing
the volunteers of Bristol, who were rushing forth to repel the
invasion of Napoleon, who threatened to lay waste the fair homes of
England, "Religion is too much interested in your behalf, not to shed
over you her most gracious influences."
You will not be compelled to spend much time in order to become inured
to hardships. From the first moment that you breathed the air of
heaven, you have been accustomed to nothing else but hardships. The
heroes of the American Revolution were never put upon harder fare,
than a peck of corn, and a few herrings per week. You have not become
enervated by the luxuries of life. Your sternest energies have been
beaten out upon the anvil of severe trial. Slavery has done this, to
make you subservient to its own purposes; but it has done more than
this, it has prepared you for any emergency. If you receive good
treatment, it is what you could hardly expect; if you meet with pain,
sorrow, and even death, these are the common lot of the slaves.
Fellow-men! patient sufferers! behold your dearest rights crushed to
the earth! See your sons murdered, and your wives, mothers, and
sisters, doomed to prostitution! In the name of the merciful God! and
by all that life is worth, let it no longer be a debateable question,
whether it is better to choose LIBERTY or DEATH!
In 1822, Denmark Veazie, of South Carolina, formed a plan for the
liberation of his fellow men. In the whole history of human efforts to
overthrow slavery, a more complicated and tremendous plan was never
formed. He was betrayed by the treachery of his own people, and died a
martyr to freedom. Many a brave hero fell, but History, faithful to
her high trust, will transcribe his name on the same monument with
Moses, Hampden, Tell, Bruce, and Wallace, Touissaint L'Overteur,
Lafayette and Washington. That tremendous movement shook the whole
empire of slavery. The guilty soul thieves were overwhelmed with fear.
It is a matter of fact, that at that time, and in consequence of the
threatened revolution, the slave states talked strongly of
emancipation. But they blew but one blast of the trumpet of freedom,
and then laid it aside. As these men became quiet, the slaveholders
ceased to talk about emancipation: and now, behold your condition
to-day! Angels sigh over it, and humanity has long since exhausted her
tears in weeping on your account!
The patriotic Nathaniel Turner followed Denmark Veazie. He was goaded
to desperation by wrong and injustice. By Despotism, his name has
been recorded on the list of infamy, but future generations will
number him among the noble and brave.
Next arose the immortal Joseph Cinque, the hero of the Amistad. He was
a native African, and by the help of God he emancipated a whole
ship-load of his fellow men on the high seas. And he now sings of
liberty on the sunny hills of Africa, and beneath his native palm
trees, where he hears the lion roar, and feels himself as free as that
king of the forest. Next arose Madison Washington, that bright star of
freedom, and took his station in the constellation of freedom. He was
a slave on board the brig Creole, of Richmond, bound to New Orleans,
that great slave mart, with a hundred and four others. Nineteen struck
for liberty or death. But one life was taken, and the whole were
emancipated, and the vessel was carried into Nassau, New Providence.
Noble men! Those who have fallen in freedom's conflict, their memories
will be cherished by the true hearted, and the God-fearing, in all
future generations; those who are living, their names are surrounded
by a halo of glory.
We do not advise you to attempt a revolution with the sword, because
it would be INEXPEDIENT. Your numbers are too small, and moreover the
rising spirit of the age, and the spirit of the gospel, are opposed to
war and bloodshed. But from this moment cease to labor for tyrants who
will not remunerate you. Let every slave throughout the land do this,
and the days of slavery are numbered. You cannot be more oppressed
than you have been--you cannot suffer greater cruelties than you have
already. RATHER DIE FREEMEN, THAN LIVE TO BE SLAVES. Remember
that you are THREE MILLIONS.
It is in your power so to torment the God-cursed slaveholders, that
they will be glad to let you go free. If the scale was turned, and
black men were the masters, and white men the slaves, every
destructive agent and element would be employed to lay the oppressor
low. Danger and death would hang over their heads day and night. Yes,
the tyrants would meet with plagues more terrible than those of
Pharaoh. But you are a patient people. You act as though you were made
for the special use of these devils. You act as though your daughters
were born to pamper the lusts of your masters and overseers. And worse
than all, you tamely submit, while your lords tear your wives from
your embraces, and defile them before your eyes. In the name of God we
ask, are you men? Where is the blood of your fathers? Has it all run
out of your veins? Awake, awake; millions of voices are calling you!
Your dead fathers speak to you from their graves. Heaven, as with a
voice of thunder, calls on you to arise from the dust.
Let your motto be RESISTANCE! RESISTANCE! RESISTANCE!--No oppressed
people have ever secured their liberty without resistance. What kind
of resistance you had better make, you must decide by the
circumstances that surround you, and according to the suggestion of
expediency. Brethren, adieu. Trust in the living God. Labor for the
peace of the human race, and remember that you are three millions.
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